Gale bound in Fowey but Lands End is behind us!

Here we are in Fowey. Ricard Goodman and I arrived here on Saturday afternoon from the Helford River. I had planned a layday for yesterday as the first Richard was replaced by the arrival of Richard Sargent and were due to leave early this morning for Salcombe but mother nature has beaten us by sending a gale straight through our path so we are holed up here until hopefully tomorrow when the weather window looks like opening again.

This is the first opportunity I have had to add to the blog so here goes with a brief resume of progress so far.


We left Rock Sailing Club a few hours after the Shrimper Dinner - well fed and moderately well watered! We cast off the club pontoon at 0130 on Thursday in pouring rain, thunder and lightning and flat water. Not being night eyes adjusted it was more difficult than I had imagined, although I did appreciate the lighning flashesd which illuminated the bay momentarily. I know the estuary well in daylight but the dark was something else. We edged out under motor to the Padstow navigation buoys and then eased out past Stepper Point and headed down the coast still under motor as we were being well headed. As dawn broke we hoisted sails and managed to motor sail to St Ives where we arrived at about 0930. We stayed in the outer harbour before the tide allowed us to go in and take a mooring on the drying sand.

I will write a longer version of all of this when I am home so bear with me as I write this concise version of events.

We departed St Ives at 0400 on Friday bound for Lands End. Winds were pretty much on the nose as we left so we motored on until a change in wind direction allowed us to hoist sails. As we moved further south we were joined by a large school of dolphins who simply played alongside the Shrimper for half an hour or so. As we got closer to Lands End the sea state changed and became progressively more confused throwing BB about a bit but all the time we remained dry and she handled remarkably well. The sight of the Brisons and the Longships for me was quite a sight. After months of planning and reading up on what to expect - here we were about to round the end of mainland Britain. We rounded at 0730 and changed course for the LIzard.

The handheld GPS has worked very well and I was pleased to have done all my waypoint entries back in the Spring. We changed course for the Lizard with the intention of heading for Newlyn

However the wind was set fair and I decided to sail on the Helford River having consulted with our mother ship Resoltion who was just leaving Fowey bound West. We arrived at the Helford at about 1400 hours within minutes of Resolution - a remkarkable coincidence. We moored up together on a vistors buoy and both of us took good advantage fo the facilities provided by the luxurty 42 footer that is Resolution - complete with electric flush!!

After a shower and supper at the Helford River Sailing Club we slept well aboard BB. The folowing morning we sailed on to Fowey in a brisk breeze allowing us a superb reach. We managed 6.3kts at one stage and had an exciting sail to Fowey where we arrived in the early afternoon. Resolution joined us a couple of hours later and we rested up together.

I am going to pause this now and will return at the next opportunity. Having done our on-line weather checks I am reasonably confident that we can leave tomorrow morning. Until the next time - farewell for now BB